Thursday, 17 January 2013

Trilobite-Knight

Two
hundred and fifty million years ago a war began when something tried
to kill the earth. No-one alive knows what or why. The coal burned in
the ground and poisoned the sky. The forests were consumed en-mass.
They died to fast to leave a trace of oil. A fungal spike occurred.
Vast growths feeding on the rotting flesh of disaster-taxons. Whole
species. Most species. Big enough to leave a negative trace in rocks
we find today. A speckling of empty oil beds, fossil fungal spores,
shocked quartz and fullerines holding some unknown extraterrestrial
gas.

Ninety
four percent of everything alive was killed. We descend from the
surviving six per cent. The war was lost by life, which shrivelled on
the earth.

But
not quite.

One
survived. Carrying the memory of the war beyond Gowandaland. The
Trilobite. A blind and sleepless knight in clanking armour clad.
Wandering the hidden places of the world, carrying its burden through
the empty night, lest darkness rise again.

They
saw the first light on earth. Not the first made, but the first seen.
The first eyes possessed by living things. The first to fully know
the light, the first to fear the dark. The first to know what shadows
were, how colours work. The first to see the other suns beyond the
moon. The first to see the light that stains the sky before the dawn.
They loved the Earth.

Trilobite
eyes are subtle hexagonal hives of liquid-bright calcite. They see in
depth, with great complexity. Their sight became a curse. The artful
sheet-glass transparency made them prime, unavoidable, and sole
witnesses to the holocaust of earthly things. A scale and intensity
of murder forgotten by prophets, a soul-blinding horror.

The
few that lived abandoned sight, they moved into the silent knots
within the planets skin. They waited while the rotting flesh of every
living race piled past in torrents of corruption. They waited while
the fungal lords ruled briefly on the dying corpse of earth. They
waited while the slow rebirth of life began again. They concentrated
on survival. They have a reason to go on. Apart from the strange
myconid dream-mind that might or might not span the globe, they are
the only ones who remember. The only living thing to even know the
threat exists. They are hiding but they are not beaten, they know it
will return.

A
Trilobite-Knight is a six-foot, silent, intelligent bug. Clothed in
natural plate and following something pretty much like the chivalric
code. Fight with honour on life's right hand. Never kill a
surrendered foe. Defend the weak against the strong. Uphold the
right.

They
will challenge adventurers to learn their worth. It is not so unusual
to find a Psychopyge
sword-bearing bug, rearing in heraldic defiance across a needle-thin
abyssal pass. Or duelling on the rocks through Nightmare Falls.
Sometimes appearing unannounced when danger lurks. Striking evil from
the darkness.

They
will test the skills and morals of those they meet. They are looking
for honourable opponents. A single enemy that advances and fights
alone, fail or prevail, will win their respect. They always accept
surrenders and always punish scheming and deceit.

They
will not help Myconid slaves, or interact with myconids in any way.
No-one knows why.